MST and Escola Nacional Florestan Fernandes: formation, communication and political socialization¹

Abstract

This paper presents results of research about the political formation of the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (Movement of Landless Rural Workers - MST) from the communication and socialization with the urban worker. We used the dialectic method and applied qualitative techniques, semi-structured interviews with MST leaders, and anthropological research at the Escola Nacional Florestan Fernandes (Florestan Fernandes National School – ENFF). ENFF, founded by the MST in Guararema, State of São Paulo, in 2005, is one of the main spaces for the political formation of social movements in Latin America. It is also a strategic space for the formation, communication and political socialization between the working class from the countryside and the city. ENFF has the potential to be a space of building popular hegemony through the sociability between social movements from the countryside and the city, through common symbolic production and universalizing education, yet it is still a place where political hegemony and culture of the MST prevail.

Keywords
Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (Movement of Landless Rural Workers – MST); Political formation; Popular hegemony; Field and city

Resumo

Este artigo apresenta resultados de pesquisa sobre a formação política do Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) a partir da comunicação e socialização com o trabalhador urbano. Utiliza-se o método dialético e são aplicadas técnicas qualitativas, entrevistas semiestruturadas com lideranças do MST, e pesquisa antropológica na Escola Nacional Florestan Fernandes (ENFF). A ENFF, fundada pelo MST no município de Guararema, Estado de São Paulo, em 2005, é um dos principais espaços de formação política dos movimentos sociais da América Latina. Constitui também espaço estratégico para a formação, comunicação e socialização política entre a classe trabalhadora do campo e da cidade. A ENFF possui potencial para ser espaço de construção da hegemonia popular por meio da sociabilidade entre movimentos sociais do campo e da cidade, por meio da produção simbólica comum e da educação universalizante, contudo, ainda é um espaço em que prevalecem a hegemonia política e a cultura do MST.

Palavras-chave
Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST); formação política; hegemonia popular; campo e cidade

Resumen

Este artículo presenta los resultados de investigación sobre la educación política del Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (Movimiento de los Trabajadores Rurales Sin Tierra – MST) a partir de la comunicación y la socialización con el trabajador urbano. Utiliza el método dialéctico y aplica técnicas cualitativas, entrevistas semiestructuradas con los líderes del MST, y la investigación antropológica en la Escola Nacional Florestan Fernandes (Escuela Nacional Florestan Fernandes – ENFF). El ENFF, fundada por el MST en municipio de Guararema, Estado de San Pablo, en 2005, es un de los principales espacios de formación política de los movimientos sociales en América Latina. También es un espacio estratégico para la formación, la comunicación y la socialización política entre la clase trabajadora del campo y la ciudad. La ENFF tiene el potencial de ser el espacio para la construcción de la hegemonía popular por medio de la sociabilidad entre los movimientos sociales del campo y la ciudad, por medio de la producción simbólica común y la educación universalizar, sin embargo, sigue siendo un lugar en el que prevalece la hegemonía política y cultura del MST.

Palabras clave
Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST – Movimiento de los Trabajadores Rurales Sin Tierra); educación política; hegemonía popular; campo y la ciudad

Introduction

This paper presents results of a research developed between 2010 and 2015, with the objective of understanding, under a historical point of view, how the relationship and the political articulation between the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (Movement of Landless Rural Workers – MST) and the city, between rural and urban workers, in the struggle for popular hegemony, hegemony of the working class are developed (BASTOS, 2015). In addition, what this relationship represents for the formation, strength, practice and political struggle of the Sem Terra² (Landless). This implies understanding the MST’s dialogical capacity, pedagogical and communicative disposition and intentionality for political and class alliances with the urban worker.

We used the dialectical method and applied qualitative techniques, semi-structured interviews with the leaders and militants, and also carried out anthropological research³ in the visits to ENFF. The developed methodology, which combines anthropological research with dialectical materialism, makes it possible to illuminate microsocial aspects, everyday social and cultural practices that reveal the totality of the class struggle⁴. The main objective of the research carried out in Escola Nacional Florestan Fernandes (Florestan Fernandes National School – ENFF), presented in this paper, was to identify how the political and communication formation developed in the School, the sociability developed in this space, contribute to the process of communication and political socialization between the MST and the urban working class. Moreover, more specifically, in what way the political and pedagogical praxis of ENFF contribute to the class alliances that can materialize popular hegemony.

With the advancement of research and knowledge on the subject, the composition of the theoretical corpus began to be built around three axes of analysis: the materialist dialectical bias combined with the critical tendency of cultural studies, the materialist perspective on the production of social space and Communication studies about the MST.

Hegemony, counter-hegemony and popular hegemony

The concepts of counter-hegemony and popular hegemony may be equivalent, but, in the understanding developed herein, emphasis falls on the emancipatory potential of the popular project contained in the sense of popular hegemony. The concept of counter-hegemony was developed by Raymond Williams in 1971. In analyzing hegemony as a process, which has complex internal structures that need to be renewed and continually recreated, the English author emphasizes that hegemony “suffers a continuous resistance, altered, challenged by pressures other than its own” (WILLIAMS, 1979, p.115-116) and states that we must add to the concept of hegemony the concepts of counter-hegemony and alternative hegemony. Hall (2003) uses the concept of popular hegemony by referring to the centrality of culture, the “national-popular”, in Gramsci’s analysis of social development and political practice.

We have popular culture as the culture of the people, common sense, conception of the world and life that exist concretely, generally with progressive and reactionary elements as demonstrated by Gramsci (1966), and the popular project that exists as a concrete historical possibility, which sprouts from this culture to overcome it and constitute another culture, another reality. This is why the popular political force present in MST’s narratives, themes and protest words - popular power, popular education and popular agrarian reform - because they think of the totality of the working class from the perspective of hegemony. The way towards the construction of hegemony of the working class, the popular hegemony, is the construction of the popular power from the education and popular culture. Moreover, according to Hall (2003, p.246, author’s emphasis): “the ability to constitute classes and individuals as a popular force - this is the nature of the political and cultural struggle: to transform divided classes and isolated people - divided and separated by culture and other factors - into a popular-democratic cultural force”.

Both Lenin (2009), who formulated the concept of hegemony in 1905, and Gramsci (1978), who used it for the first time in 1926, emphasized the strategy of the political alliance of the popular classes between the proletariat and the peasantry eminently in the process of struggle for proletarian hegemony. With the evolution and expansion of the concept by Gramsci, the process of hegemony begins to involve the class alliances of the historical block that is on control, and not only to the strategies of struggle of the proletarian hegemony. Hegemony becomes a wide and complex political, pedagogical and communicational process of construction and maintenance of national and international power, which involves the consent and the whole of the social classes, institutions of civil society and the state, in a historically conjunctural balance, with potential instabilities, structured under the economic base and the moral, intellectual, political and cultural direction of the majority of the citizens. Gramsci (1966, p.52) calls this set of power balance between base and superstructure, material and ideological forces the “historical block”. This is a fundamental contribution of Gramsci: class unity will not occur automatically by its position in the relations of production, but it must be in a “system of alliances” (HALL, 2003, p.295).

Educational institutions are the main agents of transmission and incorporation of the dominant culture (WILLIAMS, 2005, p.217). For Gramsci (1966), science is also a historical category and, between the levels of the superstructure, it has a particular potential for reflexed action: “in the study of superstructures, science occupies a privileged spot, because its reaction on structure has a particular feature of greater extension and continuity of development (...)” (GRAMSCI, 1966, p.71). In the meantime, the formation of new organic intellectuals from the popular field is a central practice in the struggle for political hegemony, for the conquest of political-ideological leadership, for the historical transformation and constitution of a new block of power. Undoubtedly, education’s struggle is the primordial hegemonic level either for the reproduction of the dominant culture and for the construction of popular hegemony for the practice of liberating education that makes it possible, from Freire’s point of view, to make the world ethic (FREIRE, 2000).

ENFF: formation, communication and political socialization

The process of construction of ENFF is directly related to the evolution of pedagogy, the politics formation and Education Sector of MST. The beginning of ENFF dates back to the late 1980s and early 1990s. In the second half of the 1980s, other spaces of political formation and socialization were created, such as union schools, periodical courses of political formation developed with the workers’ union movement, linked to the Central Única dos Trabalhadores (Unified Workers’ Central – CUT) (FERNANDES, 2000, p.175).

In 1990, the first opportunity arose to form a national school. It was based on a structure of the Catholic Church, in the city of Caçador-SC, which became the first MST formation school, denominated Centro de Formação e Pesquisa Contestado (Center of Formation and Research Contestado – CEPATEC), considered the first National MST School, germ of the Florestan Fernandes National School (FERNANDES, 2000, p.44). The training process was dimensioned to attend the qualification needs of the sectors.

In 1995, the Instituto Técnico de Estudos e Pesquisas da Reforma Agrária (Technical Institute for Studies and Research of Agrarian Reform – Iterra), comes up in the city of Veranópolis-RS with a greater focus on technical and vocational education, without neglecting the theoretical and political formation that characterizes the pedagogy of MST. In 2001, school was renamed as Instituto de Educação Josué de Castro (Josué de Castro Education Institute – IEJC). The formation process of MST seeks to form individuals at different levels - grassroots education, militants, leaders - to intervene in reality. One of the main concerns of the MST is the political and ideological formation of people on the bases of the process, through study, work and relationship with reality. Work is a central element of Sem Terra (Landless) culture and pedagogy. At the beginning of its trajectory, when they did not have yet a consistent critical mass to develop its processes of political and ideological formation, MST developed formative activities in partnership and constant dialogues with worker’s union movement, the church and popular field entities. In the beginning, the formation activities acquired agitation and advertising characteristics to mobilize the masses against violence to the rural worker and to motivate the bases for occupations (FERNANDES, 2000, p.40).

Since 1996, MST has begun to reflect on the need to build a national, geographically central school. Older militants say that it was very cold in the schools of the country’s Southern region, besides the displacement for the personnel of the Northern and Northeastern regions being very difficult. In 1998, the Formation Notebook N^o. 29 was launched, entitled “Campaign for the Construction of the MST National School”. In the presentation of the Notebook, it is explained that they decided at the VIII National Meeting, held in Salvador-BA, the proposal to challenge MST every year. In 1996, the MST organizations from several states bought their headquarters. In 1997, they purchased the headquarters of the National Secretariat in São Paulo. And that the year of 1998 should mark the construction of the National School, which would be the symbol of the struggle for study and schooling. The central idea of the Notebook was “to turn the Campaign into a great school” (MST, 1998).

There were two large campaigns organized by MST for the ENFF construction. The first of them was an internal one, with the objective of raising awareness and organizing militancy for work and collection of resources. Five main objectives were presented for the ENFF construction, which we will briefly outline: to seek intellectual and scientific practice for society transformation; to stimulate social, political and economic organization to overcome internal challenges of agrarian reform; to form leaderships that contribute to the creation of a fair society; to technically qualify the agrarian reform activists; and, last but not least, we highlight: “to exchange knowledge and experience with other workers’ organizations, rural and urban ones” (MST, 1998, p.15). This objective, presented in the booklet as the fourth, expresses the objective of the School being the space of formation, communication and political socialization between the working class of countryside and city.

The other great campaign for the ENFF was external, from the “Projeto Terra” (Land Project) exhibition, with the photographs of Sebastião Salgado, the CD produced by Chico Buarque and the “Livro Terra” (Land Book), which had the contribution of the Portuguese writer José Saramago. The “Projeto Terra” became the greatest symbol of the “Campaign for the Construction of the Florestan Fernandes National School”. The “Projeto Terra” was the main communicative element of the national and international campaign, which projected MST worldwide and brought resources from organizations, including international ones, for the School’s construction. Most of the resources came from the charity of Sebastião Salgado, who granted image rights to MST. The selection and purchase of the land took place in July 1998 and the construction began on March 03, 2000, with the arrival of the 1^st Brigade, coming from the State of Mato Grosso do Sul. The opening ceremony was held on January 23, 2005, after five years of collective, cultural and political learning. The School was built voluntarily, following the pedagogy of the MST, with alternation, study, mystique and struggle.

Visits to ENFF

The anthropological research carried out at ENFF aimed to know the daily life of the school, the consubstantiation of the pedagogical project, the visitors, friends, partners, communication and political socialization among the militants of different social movements that attend, live and coexist in that space. Most of social movements that participate in the School’s courses make the Via Campesina Brasil, whom they affectionately call “cousins”. In fact, in genealogy of these movements, we can understand a “line of kinship”, especially in the umbilical relationship with land, territory and nature.

The eight visits we made to ENFF, the interviews, participation in talk circles, guitar circles and participation in the courses were essential to get to know the MST “closely and from the inside”, as ethnography advocates. The days spent there allowed us to immerse ourselves in the daily life of ENFF, enabling us to understand some characteristics of the relationships built there, which involve political ties and affection. We met and talked to militants from several organizations. Most of them were from MST, but also there were people from the Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens (Movement of the Affected by Dams – MAB), from Levante Popular da Juventude (Popular Uprising of the Youth), from the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Desempregados (Unemployed Workers’ Movement – MTD), Movimento Moradia para Todos (Housing for All Movement – MMPT), and others. Something that marked this period of coexistence and sociability is the collective feature of the space. Along with “companionship”, what is most heard in ENFF is the word “organization”. Organization of MST, workers’ organizations, organization of spaces, tasks and, most importantly, belonging to an organization. This is the core element of sociability in ENFF.

All those who really go through the school period, that is, that stay for a season in the ENFF, 20 days, a month, two months, depending on the course, are linked to some organization. Not that the individual is not important, but to belong to some collective group is a preponderant condition to participate in the School’s activities, to be part of it. The first words in meetings between unknown people, after the traditional “hello” and “how are you”, are invariably “what organization are you from?” Being a researcher does not create belonging to the space. One can feel a little strange, dislocated, but gradually, sociability develops, mainly because of the characteristic good mood and partnership that predominate. However, environment is not predominantly playful and friendly. In the courses, a lot of discipline is required. The daily rhythm of the School is almost military, without, however, losing the music, the mystique and the smile of militancy. Schedules must be followed precisely: the time of mystique, study, classes, lunch, classes again, coffee and dinner.

Saturdays are open days for visitors to ENFF. The schedule for visiting days is as follows: 8:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. – Welcome; 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. – Discussion Cycle; 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. – Lunch; 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. – Monitored visit to ENFF facilities. A symbolic value of R$ 10.00 (ten reais) for the day of the visit is charged, corresponding to breakfast and lunch. The ENFF video, shown during the visits, is called “ENFF: a school under construction”, which is the motto of the School. It reflects the spirit of the space: people in permanent construction.

In the ENFF activities, there is always an accoustic guitar nearby and someone playing. MST is very musical. In addition to the music composed by militancy, many songs from Brazilian popular music and national rock, from Alceu Valença, Milton Nascimento and Titãs, among others, are also played, and we also witnessed the rap of Veneno H2⁵, a group composed of young MST militants. Mystique and music are present even in the classroom. This was one of the aspects that most impacted us when attending courses at ENFF. Although there is a vast production and promotion of artistic production, culture is seen primarily as a means to implement the movement’s strategies of struggle, to build and consolidate humanist values and, ultimately, to build Socialism.

Arriving at ENFF, images are striking. The themes of the various graffiti represent the Latin American revolutionary mystique, as the one that illustrates the entrance wall of the ENFF and symbolizes the union of Latin American ethnicities and social movements. It is a very beautiful place, well cared for, full of images and symbols of struggle, which I later understood to be part of the mystique of MST. Not only of the MST, but of the Latin American revolutionary mystique. This is an important finding for the purposes of our research: organicity and the exchange with Latin American and international organizations, entitites and popular movements is much greater than with urban social movements, practically neighbors to the school. João Paulo Rodrigues⁶ makes incisive criticism of the use that leftist organizations make of the ENFF, which, for the leader, have not yet been able to seize the space politically.

The MST school, just between us, is most used by Via Campesina, by the Popular Consultation, the Women’s March as well. Organizations in many schools is more like a retirement home. “Oh, I’m going to take my people to meet the school and stay over for couple of days”. That he can do in any hotel. A political hostel. It has nothing to do with the school. (...) The school is not for that, to make cheap hostel for anyone. It doesn’t mean that. It has a discipline, a process, a pedagogical method. We could not make the school be better used by the leftists.

Most of the times I visited ENFF, I arrived very early, before 08:00 a.m., to attend the mystique and breakfast. We can say that every feeding moment with the militants, friends and partners of the MST is a mystical and political act. Mystic by consecration and collective consumption of food; and political by realizing that another model of agriculture is possible. Feeding moments at the ENFF are also a great opportunity for ethnographic research. During these moments, we were able to get closer to the public at school, to participate in informal conversations, to immerse ourselves and to experience the social, cultural and symbolic space with people. By providing, in practice, healthy food to everyone with a low price, MST shows that the model of popular agriculture that is advocated is concretely possible: production of food without poison, with an agroecological technological matrix and at low price for the working class. There are always fruits, vegetables, jams, jellies and juices produced by MST settlements cooperatives. This is a subject that is usually part of the conversation circles: the difference between the model proposed by MST, peasant social movements and Via Campesina and the hegemonic model of agriculture led by agribusiness.

We understand the mystique from/within MST in three ways that interpenetrate in social practice: first, the mystique brings together every sign field, the symbolism of struggle of the MST built and appropriated during the trajectory of struggle: the flag, the hymn, protest words, poetry, music, instruments and results of work; in that way, the mystique also composes the communicative and pedagogical processes of MST. More subjectively, the mystique is the sentiment that animates the struggle, which motivates the militant while marching, while listening to a story of struggle, music or poetry; therefore, in that sense, mysticism is the subjectivation of signic stimuli. Finally, there is the mystic space-time, the communicative-pedagogical-cultural-artistic act, an almost liturgical ritual in which the militancy of MST or other social movements, as it happens in the ENFF, elaborates a practice that involves several languages: music, poetry, theater, images, words and symbols that relate to the struggles of MST, peasant movements and the working class in general. Both the hymn and the flag of MST are always there as the utmost symbols of that moment. John⁷, from the rap group Veneno H2, describes the mystique as follows:

A lot of people do not know. But in the Movement, the cultural issue is very great. In the matter of music, art, crafts. The mystique is also very strong within the Movement. It is not a single representation. The mystique is what you see and causes in you indignation, you shiver, thus, seeing that. And it is denunciation, denunciation of things, it is cool. In fact, mysticism was the only thing the elite could not appropriate because it could not mess with the indignation of people. Because that’s what the mystique does.

The communication of mystique as a ritual is not immediate. You may feel it, but you cannot understand the meaning of the mystique for MST at a glance. It takes a set of mediations, knowledge of the history, culture and practices of Movement for understanding this practice. Therefore, on the visiting days of ENFF, the eagerness of some people to photograph and film the mystique, the enchantment demonstrated, involves a cultural distance, the exaltation of the beauty of the mystical act as something exotic, folkloric, in the politically negative sense of the term. Certeau, Julia and Revel (1989, p.59-60) show how the trend of popular songs at the end of the eighteenth century in France was based on the elitist conception, the historical “confiscation” of the popular. “The pleasure felt in the ‘popular’ halo that surrounds these ‘naive’ melodies founds an elitist conception of culture. Emotion comes from the very distance that separates the listener from the supposed composer”.

Every day, at ENFF at 07:45 a.m., it’s the moment of mystique. In Iterra they call this moment Time Graduation. A Núcleo Base (Base Nucleus – NB) is responsible for preparing the mystique. For the pedagogical activities, students are organized under NBs. It is the way to organize themselves in the studies and tasks of the school. There are times when several courses are held simultaneously at ENFF, with several classes and social movements. Mystique is the moment of socialization among all those who are in school, so they take advantage of this situation to give the main reports of the day, organization of activities, classes, tasks, etc. In most mystiques that we witnessed, there was a dialogue with the preset date and historical moment. As on June 27, 2014, during the World Cup in Brazil, at the Encontro do Coletivo Nacional de Comunicação, Cultura e Juventude (Encounter of the National Collective of Communication, Culture and Youth), at ENFF, when the youth of the Collective made a mystique in which they acted, from oppressive and oppressed characters, the historical, social and cultural contradictions of the country holding the event. A didactic theater play, in a Brecht point of view, with the trait and the mystique of MST. This dialogue with the historical moment strengthens the communicative and pedagogical potential of mystique. With the increasing participation of youth, intercultural dialogue between camp and city becomes more effective. The controversial debate surrounding the absolute negation of everything that comes from the city, the unconditional valorization of peasant cultural traditions and the growing rapprochement between the rural and the urban, are gradually undone. This approximation is mainly due to three processes: the spatialization of capital and the MST, which get the countryside and the city materially and symbolically together, the theoretical formation in the sectors of communication, culture and formation, focusing on the Gramscian concept of hegemony, and the common experiences between the youth of the countryside and the city, closer and closer.

V Class of Political Theory and Social Organizations of Brazil

The V Class of Political Theory and Social Organizations of Brazil had the following configuration: MST = 17 people, nine men and eight women; Pastoral da Juventude Rural (Pastoral of Rural Youth – PJR) = one woman; MAB = four people, one man and three women; Movimento dos Pequenos Agricultores (Small Farmers’ Movement – MPA) = two people, one man and one woman; MTD = two men; MMPT = three people, one man and two women; Movimento de Trabalhadores do Campo (Movement of Countryside Workers – MTC) = one man.

The class was split into five NBs. The last day of the course, November 4, 2014, began with a class about Florestan Fernandes, given by Miguel, from Editora Expressão Popular (Popular Expression Publishing House). At the beginning, the presence of the mystique of the MST was highlighted in the environment. There was an accoustic guitar and a MST boy played some songs. On that day, I also played some songs that speak of the countryside, such as “Capim Guiné”, by Raul Seixas. We all sang together and they said that I should participate in the mystique. The commentary shows the ludic aspect of the mystique and the artistic experience also as fruition. MST musicians often play diverse songs from the national popular repertoire and not just Movement songs. However, songs considered sexist or very “commercial” are not welcome. In the middle of the classroom, several elements made up the mystique of the MST.

The mystique present in the classroom, with flags, instruments and results of work, reinforces peasant identity in the teaching-learning process. It is something that has its positive aspect, considering the historical supremacy of the city culture in Brazilian schools. However, there is the risk of culture overlapping with universalizing education and the language of contradiction, with the language of critical theory (DEBORD, 2003, p.204). The mystique was also evoked in a very witty way: when everyone seemed tired of the expository class about Florestan Fernandes, a girl took the songbook “Canta MST” (Sing MST) and started a song with her classmates, who accompanied her, stretching their bodies, and then the class passed normally. Miguel used the expository method and created a conceptual map from the dialogue and debate with the students about life and work of Florestan Fernandes.

After the Florestan Fernandes class, we had a Communication Workshop, which was given by Carlinhos, from the MST of Belém. He is one of 45 militants who graduated in Jornalismo da Terra (Journalism of the Land), by the Universidade Federal do Ceará (Federal University of Ceará – UFC), at the end of 2013. The course was a partnership of MST with the UFC. There was also the participation of MAB militants. The workshop took place in the “Patativa do Assaré” auditorium and was based on the reading of the MST Communication Sector document entitled “Hegemony, politics, communication and culture” (MST, 2005). The historical fact exposed for the application of the theory developed in the document was the action of the women of Via Campesina, on the woemen’s day of 2006, when they protested against the “green desert” of the eucalyptus forests of Aracruz Celulose destroying some saplings of the forestry that belonged to the company. A video of Via Campesina was played to contradict the report of the newspaper Folha de São Paulo, published at the time and which had the title “Women plunder pulp mill in Rio Grande do Sul”. The repercussion of this episode in the media, especially in the Rede Globo TV channels, greatly damaged the image of the MST with its base and society. At the time of the debate, everyone recognized the ideological component used in the communication, both in the Via Campesina video and in the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper. The stories of entire families who were expelled from their lands by the “green deserts” were factors of sensibility that left no doubt for the militants of who was the villain of history.

The most brought subject by the militancy of the social movements to apply the concepts of hegemony was the soap opera. The women all criticized the mini-series that was being broadcasted by Rede Globo, “Amor e Ódio” (Love and Hate) which, according to them, showed women as “sluts”. The whole discussion was very fruitful. The critical reflection we make is that they could have used more examples of struggles for popular hegemony involving urban workers, with the aim of generating greater class identification with the militancy of urban movements participating in the course.

The moment of evaluation of the experience they had at ENFF was significant for the communication and political socialization of the militancy that participated of the course: school time (period that they dedicate to study), working time (about two hours a day in which they contribute to the tasks of the school) and reflections and orientations for studies during the community time (when students return to their bases to multiply what they have learned). During the afternoon, after lunch, militants gathered in the NBs talked about the period in the school.

The last activity of the day was communication and socialization of experiences from the speech of a militant chosen by each NB to report the group’s reflections. First of all, the importance of reading was reinforced and the participants of the course were given copies of short stories by author Jack London, “How I Became a Socialist”, “The Mexican” and “To Build a Fire”, to be read and socialized with the militancy of social movements during community time. The MST militant who coordinated this moment highlighted the relevance of approaching literature language. The reading and discussion of the text should ground the base work during community time. When they return to the next step of the course in the ENFF, after the community time, which lasts around three months, each militant will have the task of communicating with the collective about the reflections of the reading developed during the base work.

The second task presented by the MST militant, that was to make the presentations of the organizations, came from the proposal of one of the NBs. The critical point shows that while the dialogues between the militancy of the organizations occurred during the courses, working time and meals, there was not a moment of the course actually intended for the interchange of strategies and political principles of the organizations. However, incorporation of task was accomplished in time to deepen the political dialogue. Militants were instructed to study their organization, their cultural and political elements, and then to make the communicative process about this learning. It was pointed out that this is a challenge for the MST itself: explaining what the organization is, what its objectives and its political proposals are. By the nature of the Movement itself, this discourse evolves according to the historical and political moment. Another orientation for the next stage of school time was for organizations to bring in regional-cultural elements to present and thank partner teachers who come to teach in courses and to embellish the classroom and the mystique spaces.

The last point discussed in the opening of evaluations was on the choices of the NBs’ names. Generally, the militancy proposes the name of a left-wing historical political militant, mainly from Latin America, and creates protest words based on the political history of this militant. However, militancy can also name the NB based on a date or historical moment, such as Paris Commune, War of Canudos, War of Contestado, etc. Within each NB, a militant is responsible for register the course through images, videos and reports. After the courses, the registers sector develops a media archive with these records.

Final considerations

Political communication and socialization among rural and urban social movements are incipient. This is a level of struggle for hegemony that is strengthened as the working class struggles together, recognizing itself as allies and identifying common enemies to be fought. The communication developed in struggle and political socialization is the one that communicates with greater radicalism, that is, that produces new senses capable of generating new individual and collective subjects. To a large extent, the communication of MST and also of the main popular movements has a defensive function, the intention of dismantling the discourse of media associated materially and ideologically with the power block, and less intentionality of communicating with other sectors and popular organizations. Thus, the counter-hegemonic potential of this political communication is limited by its insular nature, by circumscription to its sign field, territory of struggle and its defensive function.

ENFF has the potential to constitute itself as a space for building popular hegemony through the sociability between social movements, the common symbolic production and the universalizing education, but it is a space in which the political hegemony and culture of the MST still prevail, with little participation of highly representative urban popular movements linked to struggles for housing, workers union centrals and student organizations. There is greater dialogue between the social movements that make up Via Campesina, but these do not have massive participation and communication with other popular movements and instances that represent the urban environment. The proposal of a Popular Project for Brazil can evolve from a consistent grassroots work and if the working class indeed builds political awareness in the struggle process, in alliances, dialogues and social arrangements.

• 1
  This article is a reviewed and expanded version of the one presented in the GP Comunicação para a Cidadania (Communication for Citizenship) of the XXXIX Congresso Brasileiro de Ciências da Comunicação, held in São Paulo from September 4 to 9, 2016.
• 2
  Sem Terra (Landless) in capital letters, by its very name, refers to the militants of the MST, while landless is the generic name of the rural worker devoid of land (FERNANDES, 2000).
• 3
  Anthropological research was conducted between November 2013 and June 2014, period in which we were at ENFF in eight opportunities.
• 4
  In the research that originated this article (BASTOS, 2015), we also analyzed, from a dialetic perspective, the historical relations between the city and the countryside, the capitalist production of space, and processes of class formation between countryside and city, with a focus on the MST, considering the economic, social, political, cultural and communicational processes.
• 5
  See: BASTOS, BASTOS, Pablo N. Rap da roça – Diálogos políticos entre a juventude do campo e da cidade. Comunicação & Educação, São Paulo, v. 21, n. 2, p.39-47, 2016. Available at: <http://www.revistas.usp.br/comueduc/article/view/109708>. Accessed on: July 18 2017.
• 6
  We did the interview with the leader on April 1, 2014, at the National Secretariat of the MST, in São Paulo.
• 7
  The members of Veneno H2 granted us an interview on September 21, 2009, in a property that the MST rented in the neighborhood of Barra Funda, in the city of São Paulo.

Referências

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  May-Aug 2017

History

• Received
  15 May 2017
• Accepted
  07 July 2017